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I wouldn't have made the Kimbrel deal. I admit it. Not because I don't like Kimbrel as a pitcher, but because I would have preferred the team focus on building the rotation from something. I would have preferred to look for a closer (rarely the top need of a last place team) in free agency, avoided Price and his 7 year deal, and focused on finding a starter via trade. Not sure what starters would be available for Margot, Guerra, Allen and Asuaje. But both Margot (BA 56, BP 14) and Guerra (BA 52, BP 56) were concensus top 100 prospects at the time, and were excellent bargaining chips. Allen and Asuaje were both decent additions, as well...

I would be surprised if the failure rate was higher among traded prospects vs. those who were retained...

It also didn't work in Detroit, but I think he may have dealt better prospects from the Boston system...

Agreed he should be benched more frequently if he struggles. But I'm not going to worry about that yet. Personally I don't think he is capable physically of playing in the field enough for the option to vest...

While Dontrelle Willis did not pan out, the price he gave up for Cabrera alone (Maybin and Miller) was easily worth it for the Tigers, especially since Miller took a long time to pan out. And I'm not so sure Dontrelle Willis, who had 3 yrs $29mill left on his deal, really upped the ante all that much.

Most GMs do. Most prospects underachieve.

No it isn't. It really doesn't work that way. Other teams employ scouts and talent evaluators. While every team may value certain skills and tools differently, they make decisions based on their own internal evaluations, not on Dombrowski's sales pitch. (Agents, on the other hand, pump up player's value all the time.) All Dombrowski can do is determine who is available in the right deal. If Dombrowski was able to pump up the value of the Sox prospects, why does he keep dealing away the good ones?

OK you are making it sound like Sox top 5 prospects - Groome, Chavis, Mata, Houck and Travis - are used cars and Dombrowski can spin up their value. Of those 5, only Travis is close to MLB, and he has to pump up his own statistical portfolio before any one is interested. Outside of his minimum wage price tag, he doesn't look much like anything special in MLB. Every team has a Sam Travis in their system already. Chavis was a guy a tagged to be good trade bait for a variety of reasons. But he's not marketable at all. Groome is the one guy the Sox have who is worthwhile in a deal. His distance from MLB is a huge factor, but he is an upside potential player. Of course, it would help his case a lot if he would actually pitch at some point in his career. 62IP across 2+ seasons isn't going to entice anyone, regardless of what the GM says. Mata and Houck need to get bettrer. Granted, both are still in A-ball, but these two guys have combined to walk 37 hitters in 45 innings!! Like with Travis, players like these two may not be so rare or on anyne's wish list. The Sox can probably swing deals for a reliever or some average help. In no way can they add any sort of big name quality player. And packaging multiple prospects won't help. When it comes to trading, four quarters do not equal a dollar. Yes, there will always be a stream of players coming up through the ranks. This does not guarantee any of them will ever be among the best 750 players in the world. Of course, a big part of the reason is that the Sox did unload a lot of farm system parts in a relatively short span, acquiring Kimbrel, Pomeranz and Sale. Hopefully these acquisitions negate the need to add any bigger arms...

It makes me think I'm about to say six words I never thought I'd say. "The Sox need Brock Holt back."

LOL I assumed it was. OK, BABIP isn't flawed. But when a player only has 21 hits and 11 of them are home runs, simply put he is going to have a low BABIP based on the fewer hits. To me, the only real problem with BABIP is it needs some sort of context to it. Normally, people like to compare it to a league average value, which is usually around .300. But not all hitters are equal, and not all will get a .300 BABIP with normal luck distribution. It really needs to be compared to an xBABIP calculation that facotrs in line drive rate, groundball rate and flyball rate. The way Betts is swinging, he is generating a lot of flyballs, so he should have a low BABIP, since fewer flyballs that stay in the park land for hits than any other type of contact (except infield flies, which xBABIP calculations can consider to be automatic outs)...

They shouldn't be popular where it's sunny. But they are certainly more popular than frequent rainouts...

Since opening day for Kelly 14IP .128 BAA .312 OPSA 0.00 ERA 0.50 WHIP 14.0 K/BB in 14.2 IP this season, Kimbrel has .143 BAA .493 OPSA 1.23 ERA 0.75 WHIP 5.25 K/BB There is no reason to mess with Kelly...

And in his last 16 games, Eduardo Nunez has a .468 OPS with 1 HR and 3 RBI. Is Hanley really the foremost guy the Sox need to be benching?

Does the weather really matter? They could really build a domed stadium. ...

What prospects do the Sox have now that they can dump for established players? Sure we can probably get another Addison Reed, which might be enough. But if we need another really big name starter (which we don't), the Sox don't have the prospects to get one. ...

Bronson Arroyo, Rich Hill

So the Sox need another starter because one of their starters has been average??

Yes. That was clearly what I was saying.

Exactly.

Moreland is the hot bat, but one bad week from Hanley shouldn't remove him from the picture altogether. And certainly shouldn't open the door for Swihart to become the fallback option. There is also the option to bench Bradley and move Martinez to left field every now and then....

All of the "tanking" talk this past off-season was thrown around by agents and the Player's Association because the free agent salaries weren't what they were expecting. But teams have gone through rebuilding programs every off-season without this much attention drawn to it. Salaries were lower because teams starting wising up to the poor business decisions in giving 30+ year old player six and seven year deals at outlandish money. The taking talk was nothing but a lot of noise and negative PR directed at the owners and their sudden and unexpected fiscal responsibility. ...

The BABIP is lower because home runs are not part of BABIP. If even half his home runs only hit the top of the wall and stayed in play, his BABIP would look more like what you would expect. ..

So the Sox should play inferior players and prioritize economics over winning?

Building a winner is tough and expensive. Tearing a team down is cheap and it takes long enough to disprove the "building a future winner" mantra that many fans buy into it. Tanking rarely works from a winning perspective, and usually depends on two factors, only one of which the team can control. Timing of a tear down to coincide with getting worthwhile players is tough to control. The other factor is, to make this strategy work, you have to have an NBA team. Unless the goal all along was to go cheap. Then it always works...

Shows where Hanley stands among Sox fans. His first baf week and already it's time to bring in Swihart? Not even Moreland, mind you. It might be getting close to admitting there is a strong possibility Swihart isn't very good either. Certainly there is no reason to have more faith in him than Hanley. People need to stop thinking the sox need to base their season around his option. Thr guy rarely plays the field and stays healthy. Likely he either gets hurt or plays well enough to EARN the option, which is a good thing. Also this scenario above has no second baseman